Even
in age, the Praetor was still handsome. He sipped from his goblet, weary from
the strange turn the gladiatorial fight had taken down at the amphitheater. The
Praetor had hoped to return to Rome, not merely to fortify his rule, but
because it was a city of order. The countryside and coasts were still far too
unruly for his liking, even after many attempts at taming.
The
Praetor acknowledged his man. “Have the Guard apprehended that interloper who
made a farce of that competition?” Indeed, that strange, barbaric man who had
trudged onto the sands had been an amusing, if not unruly division. Despite his
entertainment value, he had still transgressed, and Sulla could not allow the
stranger’s actions to go unpunished. It would make him look weak.
Octavian
spoke clearly. “Our soldiers have made enquiries, your excellency. We believe
Sergius Sextus is hiding him within the palaistra.”
The
Praetor raised an eyebrow at that. Not that he was one to salivate over every
brutish gladiator to grace the arena, but he knew of Sergius and his exploits.
The
Praetor scoffed. “Why would he risk his illustrious career for some fool?”
Then, as his eyes fell on an engraved pottery picturing all manner of
decadence, the answer dawned on the tyrant. “Never mind. I have eyes, after
all. The man is ruled by his genitals.”
There
was a time when Sulla might have likewise been swayed by a pretty face and
large muscles, but those days were well behind him now. Men of esteemed were
expected to act with dignity and conceal their vices.
Octavius,
noble and loyal, asked the obvious. “Should we capture Sergius, your excellency?”
It
took everything in Sulla’s power not to laugh at the mere thought. May the
gods have mercy on the men who’d attempt that. “No,” Sulla sniffed. “Let us
not be heavy handed in this matter. Still, it vexes me. I have done so much to
keep our hold on Rome, from spiralling into unrest and disorder.”
The
open-air chamber overlooked Calenum’s harbor. Sulla turned his face towards the
salty wind and the white caps of the roiling tides. Where most men saw nothing
but endless ocean, Sulla saw a world of unknowns, begging to be tamed. To be
ruled.
Up
here, on the hills, the world below and all its people looked so small. Sulla
turned his nose down at the city sprawl. “Do these plebians not realize how
delicate the balance? The burden placed on my shoulders. I have only just
crushed that worm, Marius, under foot. I have finally restored Rome to its
glory. Set a course. Yet it seems there are those who would yet defy my rule.”
A
never-ending battle, this empire. With enemies everywhere.
Turning
his back on the sea, Sulla moved back into the torchlit room and asked
Octavian, “What of the news from off the coast?”
“The
Band of Mido has been active, your excellency. More kidnappings in the harbor.”
At
this, Sulla pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. Already, forces in
his midst sought to undermine him. “Have we no platoons? No navy? Mido is a
tiny island of barbarians. Do not tell me that our best soldiers truly believe
those children’s stories of the monster that lurks there?”
Octavin
opened his mouth to speak, but Sulla held up his hand. “Wait. An idea comes to
me. Two birds. One stone. We cannot arrest Sergius Sextus directly, nor his
kept boy. He is no enemy to Rome. But the Midoans, and their so-called monster
must be put to heel. And Sergius would be the man to do it.”
Octavian
knew to choose his words carefully. “If I may, your honor, he won’t agree. He
takes no payment for his battles. He cares not of his freedom. He lives for the
sword alone.”
A
cruel smile crossed Sulla’s face. “All the more reason I admire Sergius Sextus.
He has ties to none. No family to speak of. A man like that is quite hard to
compel. But there is the handsome Celt, Brennus. I have seen him battle. Quite
the warrior, that one. I know Sergius cares for him dearly.”
The
Praetor’s eyes flashed with malevolent brilliance. “A pity if he were to be
kidnapped by the Midoan pirates.”
Octavian
lowered his head. He was a smart one. Quick on the uptake. “I shall arrange
something, your excellency.”
That
should have been the end of it. In fact, Sulla was content to lay back down on
his couch and dismiss the man, but then came the twitch at the back of his
skull. It was a half-remembered dream, or some whisper among the villa, eating
away at Sulla’s peace. The Praetor believed in messages sent from The Twelve
Counsel high above. Their signs and blessings had led him to conquer Rome,
after all.
“A
god speaks to me, Octavian,” Sulla said, quenching his thirst with wine. “I
know not which one. But it speaks to my heart. It tells me that this strange
man who appeared in the arena, the one with peculiar pendant around his neck,
is someone that does not belong here.”
Here. What did that mean? These tugs and
pulls and shadowed meanings from the gods were never quite clear. But Sulla
knew, just as he knew daylight, that the handsome man who had locked eyes with
him back in the amphitheatre was from someplace far off and dangerous.
With
Octavian dismissed, and Sulla finally alone, the man ordered the servants to
fetch wine and made way for his private chamber. At the foot of the long, stone
steps, the Praetor. Though age had taken its toll on his mind, it hadn’t on his
body. But like so many things, this was all by his design alone. Unlike the
slovenly youths of the modern day, Sulla trained himself like any soldier.
The
Praetor entered the perfumed, torchlit room, to find his desires waiting. It
was like a mosaic, every part perfectly place. Bound to three parallel slabs of
marble, the muscular young men looked like fallen statues in the twilit
chamber. One was fair, and curly haired. The other, with thick, dark ringlets.
The third, with deep, bronze skin. Per Sulla’s orders, all three men had been
oiled, inside and out.
Behind
each man loomed three titans, men of formidable musculature and even more
formidable endowment. They, too, had been specially selected. Their bodies
differed, from one olive-skinned brute bearing a forest across his mountain
chest, to an alabaster-skinned bull, and an Abyssinian with skin as rich as
night. Their faces were all obscured by mask in the shapes of equines, for good
reason—because their manhood matched that of any of the realm’s most virile
breeding stallions.
In
a realm where smaller members were a sign of a civilized and proper man, here
stood Sulla’s private chamber of breeding beasts. All three men starved, of
both food and sex, so that their minds were melded towards one singular focus:
that of breeding. Sulla wanted rutting beasts, and he got them. All three men
dripped pearls of white onto his floor.
Sulla
had already begun stroking himself by the time he signalled for them to begin.
The giants grunted and threw themselves on top of their quarry, forcing their
cocks to widen and part their lover’s openings. Soon, the chambers filled with
squeals, and grunt, and moans, and cries of ecstasy and agony in equal measure.
And
Praetor Sulla watched, all things by his design.
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